‘O MALU’I ‘A TUPOU 2022 by Emily Greenwood. Photograph by Document Photography | HOUSO SWEET HOUSO: THE BED 2023 by Emily Greenwood. Photograph by Document Photography | Trolley Herder 2022 by Emily Greenwood. Image courtesy of the artist
The series of prideful Tongan flags recontextualizes the Eurocentric standard to fit the Pasifika diaspora’s post-colonial framework. Continuing to unravel ancestral histories through a post-colonial lens as a forgotten Tongan excluded from the culture of the ancestors the work juxtaposes contemporary punk sub- cultural influences from the postmodernist period with ancient ancestral history. Using punk art making process while drawing aesthetic influences from contemporary Eurocentric punk cultural icons like the Pearly Kings and Queens of London and Queer culture’s drag aesthetics. Each flag is unique with different approaches to mark making. “Ko e 'Otua mo Tonga ko hoku Tofi'a” explores the tongue-in-cheek side of punk, with spray painted slogans like ‘oku ‘ikai ke u lava ‘o lea faka- Tongan’ (English translation: ‘I can’t speak Tongan’) or ‘liliu mei he Google’ (English translation: ‘Translated from Google’). This cultural adaption is a representation of what it means to exist between two cultures and exist in the diaspora. A flag represents who you are. The work is a vessel used to express the many identities the artist claims, the two important ones being a Tongan and a feminist punk. God save Queen Sālote.